"Instead of trying to convince our current government not to try, we'll develop the technology (e.g., remailers and ecash) that will make it impossible for the government to succeed." — Wei Dai (Cypherpunks mailing list, 1995) #ecash #remailers

"Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — have been given an enormous privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out." — Aaron Swartz (Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, 2008) #openaccess

"Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." — John Perry Barlow (A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996) #cyberspace #philosophy #digitalworld

"What is the greatest unsolved problem in cryptography today? Lack of user awareness." — Martin Hellman (Charles Babbage Institute Oral History, 2004) #cryptography

"I can't speak for what Satoshi intended, but I sure don't think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting 'suspicious activity' to the local secret police." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #bitcoin #surveillance #kyc #regulation

"There is only one way this vision will materialize, and that is by widespread use of cryptography. Is this technologically possible? Definitely. The obstacles are political—some of the most powerful forces in government are devoted to the control of these tools." — Steven Levy (Crypto Rebels (WIRED), 1993) #cryptography #privacy #government #politics

"Crypto anarchy is not just about avoiding laws. It's about making certain laws unenforceable, and hence making them obsolete." — Tim May (Cypherpunks Mailing List, 1992) #cryptoanarchy #law #enforcement

"I think the greed and hype and nattering about 'to the Moon!' and 'HODL' is the biggest hype wagon I've ever seen." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #bitcoin #hype #greed #criticism

"The cypherpunk movement provides an intelligible, viable, and effective model of data activism and strategic agency." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #dataactivism #resistance #agency

"You can't awaken someone who's pretending to be asleep." — Edward Snowden (Joe Rogan Experience, 2019)

"The tech powers that be are nothing without our data." — Carissa Véliz (Privacy is power (Aeon), 2019) #data #power #resistance #techcompanies

"As we move to an increasingly online world in which physical cash is not practical for many transactions, we must also develop and foster electronic cash that is as privacy-preserving and permissionless as physical cash." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #electroniccash #privacy #permissionless #cryptocurrency